MOTHER GERVAISE
Neither Ruth nor the driver was thrown out of the stalled ambulance.
But Charlie jumped out in a hurry and held out his hand to the girl.
"You got to beat it away from here, Miss Ruth," he urged. "Another of
those shells is likely to drop any minute. Hurry!"
Ruth had no desire to stay at that perilous corner of the road; but
when she started away from the stalled car she found that she was alone.
"Aren't you coming, Charlie Bragg?" she demanded, turning back.
"Go on! Go on!" he urged her. "I've got to get this old flivver out
of the mud. Keep right on to a little house you'll see on the left
under the bank. Don't go past it in the dark. That's Mother
Gervaise's cottage. It's out of reach of the Boches' shells."
"But you'll be killed, Charlie Bragg!" wailed the girl, suddenly
realizing all the peril of their situation.
"Haven't ever been killed yet," he returned. "I tell you I've got to
get this flivver out of the hole. These supplies have got to be taken
to that field hospital. They're needed. I can't leave 'em here and
run."
"But you expect me to run!" burst out Ruth, in sudden indignation.
"You can't help here. No use your taking a chance. You'll be in
enough danger later. Now, you go on, Miss Ruth. Scoot! Here comes
another!"
They heard the whine of the flying shell almost on top of the thud of
the distant gun. Charlie seized her hand and they ran up the road for
several yards. Then he stopped short, as the shell burst--this time
far to the left of the stalled ambulance.
"Gosh!" he exclaimed. "You've got me rattled, too. Here! I'll go
along to Mother Gervaise with you. Some of the fellows may be there
and I can get help. Come on."
"Oh, Charlie!" murmured the girl. "I'm afraid for you."
"Trying to make me a quitter, are you?" he demanded. "Don't you know
that if the Boches get you, they get you, and that's all there is to
it? And one way or another that fliver's got to be got out of that
hole."
Ruth was silenced. This young fellow--"boy" he called him in her own
mind--had a quality of courage that shamed her. It was just the kind
of bravery needed for the work he was doing in the war--a measure of
recklessness that keeps one from counting the cost too exactly.
Charlie Bragg had a philosophy of his own that kept him cheerful in the
face of peril and was eminently practical at just this time.
He hurried her along the road, his hand under her elbow, seemingly able
to see in the dark like a cat. But it was all black before Ruth's
eyes, and she stumbled more than once. Her knees felt weak.
"I--I _am_ scared, Charlie," she confessed, almost in a whisper.
"Yep. So was I, at first. But you know a fellow can't give in to it.
If he does he'll never get to be a first-class ambulance driver. I bet
some of the boys will be here at Mother Gervaise's and I can get help."
Another moment, and they seemed to turn a corner in the road and Ruth
saw a small patch of light at the left of the roadway. She made it out
to be an open window--the swinging shutter flung back against the wall.
There was no glass in the opening.
"There it is," Charlie said. "You might have passed it right by,
alone. You see, the house is close up against the high bank, and the
hill is between us and the front. The Boches can't drop a shell here.
It's a regular wayfarer's rest. There's a car--and another. We'll be
all right now."
Ruth saw the outlines of the two cars parked beside the road. The
young fellow led her directly toward the patch of yellow lamplight.
She saw finally a broad, thatched cottage, the eaves of the high-peaked
roof almost within reach as they came to the door.
Charlie Bragg knocked, then, without waiting for a summons to enter,
lifted the wooden latch and shoved the sagging door open.
"Hello, folks!" he said. "Got shelter for a couple of babes in the
woods? I got stalled down there at the Devil's Corner, and---- Let me
introduce Miss Fielding. She's real folks like ourselves."
He had pushed Ruth in and entered behind her. Two young men--plainly
Americans--rose from the table where they were eating. A squarely
built woman bent over the fire at the end of the room. She did not
look around from her culinary task.
"Hello, Bragg!" was the response from the other ambulance drivers.
"Cub Holdness and Mr. Francis Dwyer," said Charlie, introducing the
two. "I've got stalled, fellows."
He swiftly told of the accident and the two young men left the table.
The Frenchwoman turned and waddled toward the table, stirring spoon in
hand and volubly objecting.
"_Non, non_!" she cried. "You would spoil the so-good ragout. If you
do not eat it while it is hot----"
"The ragout can be heated over," put in Charlie. "But if the Boches
get my car with a shell--good-night! Come on, fellows. And bring a
rope. I believe we three can pull the old girl out."
The boys tramped out of the cottage. Mother Gervaise turned to Ruth
and stared at her with very bright, black eyes.
She was a broad-faced woman, brown and hearty-looking, and with a more
intelligent appearance than many of the peasants Ruth had seen. She
wore sabots with her skirt tucked up to clear her bare ankles. Her
teeth were broad and strong and white, and she showed them well as she
smiled.
"The mademoiselle is _Americaine_?" she said. "Like these
_ambulanciers_? Ah! brave boys, these. And mademoiselle is of the
_Croix Rouge_, is it not?"
"I am working in the hospital at Clair," Ruth told her. "I am on my
way with supplies to a station nearer the front."
"_Ma foi_!" exclaimed Mother Gervaise. "This has been a bad business.
You will sup, Mademoiselle, yes?"
"I will, indeed. The accident has not taken away my appetite."
"Isn't it so? We must eat, no matter what next happens," said the
woman. "Me, now! I am alone. My whole family have been destroyed.
My husband and his brother--both have been killed. I had no children.
Now I think it is as well, for children are not going to have much
chance in France for years to come. All my neighbors have scattered,
too."
"Then you have always lived here? Even before the war?" Ruth asked.
"_Oui, Mademoiselle_. Always. I was born right in that corner yonder,
on a straw pallet. The best bed my mother had. We have grown rich
since those days," and she shrugged her shoulders.
"I was an only child and the farm and cot came to me. Of course, I had
plenty of the young men come to make love to me and my farm. I would
have none of that kind. Some said I went through the wood and picked
up a crooked stick after all. But Pierre and me--_ma foi_! We were
happy, even if the old father and Pierre's brother must come here to
live, too.
"The old father he die before the Germans come. I thank _le bon Dieu_
for that. Pierre and his brother were mobilized and gone before the
horde of _les Boches_ come along this road. I am here alone, then. I
begin making coffee and soup for them. Well, yes! They are men, too,
and become hungry and exhausted. I please them and they treat me well.
I learn what it means to make money--cash-money; and so I stay. Money
is good, Mademoiselle.
"I might have wished poison into their soup; but that would not have
killed them. And had I doctored it myself I would have been hung, and
been no better off. So I made friends," and she smiled grimly.
"But I learned how boastful men could be--especially Germans. One--he
was a major and one of the nobility--stayed here overnight. He
promised to take me back to Germany when the war was over--which would
be in a few weeks. They were to be in Paris in a few days then.
"He promised I would be proud when I became all German. France, he
said, would never be a separate country again. For most of the
people--my people--he said, were weaklings. They would emigrate to
America and the remaining would intermarry with Germans. So all France
would become Germany.
"When he was awake, he was full of bombast, that major! When he was
asleep he snored outrageously. Ugh! For the first time in my life I
hate anybody," declared Mother Gervaise, shuddering.
"But he paid me well for his lodging. And his men paid me for the
soup. They marched past steadily for two days. Then they were gone
and the country all about was peaceful for a week. At the end of that
time they come back."
Here Mother Gervaise smiled, but it was a victorious smile. Her face
lighted up and her eyes shone again.
"Pellmell back they came," she repeated. "It was a retreat. Many had
lost their guns and their packs. I had no soup for them. I said I had
lost my poulets and all. But it was not so. I had them hidden.
"The orderly of my major came in here, threw up his hands, and shouted:
'No Paris! No Paris!' And then he tramped on with his fellows. They
chopped the trees and blew up many houses. But mine was marked, as the
Boches did in those first days: 'These are good people. Let them be.'
So I was not molested," finished Mother Gervaise.
"Now, sit you down, Mademoiselle, at the table. Here where I have
spread a napkin. The ragout----
"Bless us and save us!" she added, as a sudden roar of voices sounded
outside the cot and the throaty rattle of a motor engine. "Whom have
we here?"
She went to the door and flung it open. Ruth hesitated at the chair in
which she had been about to be seated. Outside she saw bunched several
uniformed men. They were hilariously pushing into the cottage,
thrusting the excited Mother Gervaise aside.